Notes from the Field

The Role of Social Movements in Brazil and of UK/Brazil Partnerships in Changing Childbirth by Christine McCourt and Camilla Schneck AND Crisis, Uncertainty, Responsibility: Pregnancy in the Time of Zika by K. Eliza Williamson

Call for Papers on Sustainable Birth for Edited Collection due by May 15th.

In accord with the current focus on sustainability, we explore systematic and innovative solutions to excess maternal and neonatal mortality and morbidity that can be adapted across nations, regions, and communities to restore mother-centered and newborn-centered models of birth. Please send 250-word abstract to Kim.Gutschow@williams.edu by May 15, 2015. For more
information, please contact the editors.

In this Issue:

CAR meetup at SfAA, Thursday, March 26th

CAR History, “Looking Back: Narrative Histories of CAR”

By Eliza Williamson

For the current issue we asked long-time members to reflect on their experiences in CAR, past and present. We were able to collect two short interviews–one with Robbie Davis-Floyd and the other with Susan Erikson. Lynn Morgan also submitted an early memo on CAR’s advocacy initiatives. Various others helped us gather information on CAR’s beginnings.

In this Issue:

Notes from the Chair: Notes on Teaching Anthropology

By Sallie Han

Teaching a course in the Anthropology of Reproduction in particular has presented itself as an opportunity – not only for my students, but also for myself – to read across the four fields of anthropology. This semester, I assigned the first chapter of Brigitte Jordan’s Birth in Four Cultures (in which she describes a biosocial approach to childbirth) with evolutionary anthropologist Wenda Trevathan’s “The Evolution of Bipedalism and Assisted Birth,” and Holly Dunsworth’s posts critiquing the obstetrical dilemma hypothesis on The Mermaid’s Tale blog (http://ecodevoevo.blogspot.com/2012/07/thatobstetrical-dilemma-really-tied.html and http://ecodevoevo.blogspot.com/2012/08/that-obstetricaldilemma-really-tied.html).

In This Issue:

Our First CAR Not ­Mentoring Hangout: A Success! By Dick Powis and Lucia Guerra­-Reyes

Now that we know that we can hold a Not-Mentoring Hangout without an issue, we are interested in scheduling them monthly.If you’re interested in participating in a Hangout, if you have an idea for a topic that you would want discussed, or if you just want more information on teleconferencing, please contact Lucia Guerra-Reyes (luciaaguerra@gmail.com) or Dick Powis (richard.powis@gmail.com).

In This Issue:

Ina May Gaskin Inducted into the National Women’s Hall Of Fame
By: Robbie Davis-Floyd

She gave a brilliant talk. She began by noting that even though she could not legally practice in New York State as a CPM, she had actually and legally attended a birth in New York, on a Native American reservation there that is not officially part of NY. “Balance” was her theme—the balance the Six Nations achieved by having men as chiefs, with a committee of women as the voters who decided what the male leaders could and could not do, such as when they could and could not go to war.

In This Issue:

Membership Column:
Eggs, feathers, and tweets: more CAR news for members
By Claire Wendland

In a heartfelt op-ed piece for CNN, CAR member Marcia Inhorn recently pleaded “Women, consider freezing your eggs.” Inhorn’s editorial hit notes that will sound familiar to many anthropologists of reproduction: she described the relentless pace and overwhelming work expectations of academic life that pushed her own choice to become pregnant later and later. Drawing on her own experience, and noting that women with career ambitions face a “fertility penalty,” Inhorn ended the piece by explaining that she will now begin recommending egg freezing to her female graduate students. While the editorial did mention some of the concerns one might have about the technology, it downplayed them in portraying egg freezing as a “technological game-changer” that may allow women to “have it all” after all

In This Issue:

Notes From the Field:
“Hurry Up and Wait: Patience in Preliminary Field Research”
By Jess Newman

Still without this experience, I wouldn’t have gotten a glimpse at what awareness-raising and activism look like before it even registers in public consciousness. In 2008, the Moroccan Association for Family Planning (AMPF) publish an exploratory study on unsafe abortion (avortment á risques) in the hopes of sparking a debate about abortion’s criminalization. It met with indifferent results, prompting only a few non-committal public statements from politicians. A few articles surface in local media about a gynecologist who was fast becoming politicized as a result of treating so many women with complications from botched abortions, but the discussion ended there.

In This Issue:

Notes From the Field of an Embryo Ethnographer
By Risa Cromer

With all that is happening across the United States concerning women’s reproductive health and autonomy-personhood amendments, funding attack on Planned Parenthood and their patients, incarcerations of women like Bei Bei Shuari, government mandated ultrasounds, and remarkable statement about pills between our knees-I want to offer a few windows into a world where embryonic personhood is the status quo. I highlight examples of grief an loss with embryo adoption and consider some resonant examples from my volunteer works as a peer counselor. Even across gulfs like embryonic personhood, I believe it is worthwhile to identify shared reproductive experiences, such as grief or loss.

In This Issue:

A Transnational Alliance in the Argentine Campaign For Legal, Safe, and Free Abortion
By Lynn M. Morgan and Mónica Tarducci

The movement to legalize abortion in Argentina has been gaining momentum as part of an ongoing social mobilization around human rights. Argentina is internationally known for its human rights achievements, thank in large part to the courageous Madres de la Plaza de Mayo who protested the disappearance of their children during and since the last military dictatorship (1976-1983). The Campaña has adopted the Madres’ trademark handkerchief as its symbol -in green rather than white-to emphasize that “women’s rights are human rights.” Argentina has inspired North American human rights advocates in more ways than one. In 2010, Argentina became the first Latin American country to legalize gay an lesbian marriage. Argentine feminists were vocal supporters of marriage equality’ equal marriage advocates are now vocally supporting the legalization of abortion.